United States

There is one structural fact a content team has to internalize before anything else: in the United States, gambling is regulated state by state. There is no federal licensing framework and no national online-gambling law. The federal government sets the outer boundaries — what is prohibited across state lines, how tribal gaming works, how gambling-related money is handled — and leaves the regulation of legal gambling to each state. Practically, that means no single set of rules applies nationwide, and Playbook needs a compliance module for every state you operate in.

The complete state modules

Two states have full Playbook compliance modules today — built to the same depth as the Ontario and UK pages, covering the regulator, legal requirements, helpline rules, messaging, advertising, self-exclusion, and player-protection tools. Start with these when you need the actual obligations rather than the at-a-glance status.

Who regulates, and how

There is no equivalent to the UK's Gambling Commission at the national level. Each state runs its own regulator (sometimes several), its own licensing structure, its own permitted products, and its own player-protection requirements. Some frameworks are decades old and highly developed (see Nevada); others are newer markets still building their apparatus (see Massachusetts).

The model is best described as devolved: authority sits with the states, and with tribal nations under IGRA. For Playbook, the headline consequences are that helplines, advertising rules, and player-protection requirements all vary by state, and that the brand configuration should be structured as state sub-entries rather than a single flat US entry.

The federal guardrails

Five federal instruments shape what is and isn't possible. None of them regulate legal gambling directly — they set criminal boundaries, govern tribal gaming, and impose financial-crime controls — but every state operates inside them.

Federal agencies in the picture

No federal agency licenses casinos, but several touch the industry through finance, tribal oversight, advertising, and tax.

The national helpline

The National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) operates the primary US gambling helpline. The branding shifted in late 2025, so the team needs to know which number to reach for in which context — and which is now the line NCPG itself runs.

Some states run their own helplines on top of the national number. When a state has one, it typically must appear alongside — or instead of — the national line. Those state-specific requirements live in each state's module.

Messaging requirements

Because messaging obligations are set state by state, the US rarely imposes a single nationwide verbatim line the way some countries do. Instead, the requirement is usually obligation-based: a state mandates that a responsible-gambling message and a helpline reference appear, and an operator meets that obligation with compliant copy. That is good news for Playbook — it leaves room to satisfy the rule in the brand voice rather than reciting a clinical script. Where a state does prescribe exact wording or an exact helpline number, treat it as verbatim and reproduce it precisely; the state modules flag those cases. For how the same obligation reads in the Playbook register versus compliance boilerplate, see Voice & Tone.

Advertising restrictions

Federal advertising law is light-touch — the FTC enforces truth-in-advertising, and the IRS and FinCEN sit on the finance side — so most channel-level rules come from the states and from the AGA Responsible Gaming Code below. The constants that hold across channels:

The AGA Responsible Gaming framework

The American Gaming Association (AGA) publishes a voluntary Responsible Gaming Code of Conduct that most major US operators follow. It isn't law, but it represents industry best practice and is frequently cited by state regulators — which makes it the closest thing the US has to a national responsible-gaming baseline.

Self-exclusion and player protection

There is no national self-exclusion register. Self-exclusion is run at the state level — and in some states at the property level — so the right program to name depends entirely on where the player is. Operators are expected to participate in their state's self-exclusion program, and Playbook copy should point players to your self-exclusion program for the relevant state rather than a single national scheme. The state modules (starting with Nevada) document each program by name.

The broader player-protection toolkit is consistent in spirit across states even where the mechanics differ: deposit and spend limits, time and session reminders, cool-off and account pauses, and self-assessment check-ins. Playbook frames each as a tool the player chooses to use, not a restriction imposed on them.

State readiness table — all 50 states + DC

The complete module below covers every state plus the District of Columbia. Legal age is 21 in most states with commercial casinos and 18 in several states for lottery, pari-mutuel, or tribal gaming only (shown as 21 / 18 where it splits by product). "Online casino" and "Online poker" are the regulated iGaming products; many more states permit online sports betting than online casino. Two states carry Complete modules today; the rest are Planned.

Online status, early 2026: online casino is live in 7 states (CT, DE, MI, NJ, PA, RI, WV); online poker in 6 (DE, MI, NV, NJ, PA, WV); online sports betting in roughly 30. A dash (—) in the regulator column marks states with no dedicated gambling regulator (typically because no regulated gambling exists, or only a lottery does). Nevada has no lottery — it is constitutionally prohibited.